Assessing Capture Quality

When converting VHS tapes to DVD, you have many alternatives, ranging from analog capture devices that work with your computer and DVD recorder to consumer appliances like the JVC SR-MV40U (retail $440) that convert in a single step. We wanted to find out if any solution delivered significantly better quality than the others.

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When converting VHS tapes to DVD, you have many alternatives, ranging from analog capture devices that work with your computer and DVD recorder to consumer appliances like the JVC SR-MV40U (retail $440) that convert in a single step. We wanted to find out if any solution delivered significantly better quality than the others.

To test this, we produced MPEG-2 files with three devices: the SR-MV40U, ADS Tech's DVD Xpress ($99.99 direct), and Canopus Corp.'s ADVC300 ($549 direct). We captured directly into MPEG-2 format with the JVC deck and ADS DVD Xpress. The ADVC300 captures in DV format, not MPEG-2 directly. As mentioned in the article, although MyDVD can convert DV input into MPEG-2 format in real time, it uses an algorithm optimized for speed, not quality, so we recommend against this. Instead, you should capture in DV/AVI format, and then convert to MPEG-2 in non-real time, which is how we produced the test videos from the ADVC300. During capture, we used default settings for color, filters, and other adjustments on all products.

We tested four scenes from four different tapes, comparing both still image quality and comparative quality during real-time playback, with the Canopus unit leading slightly in both categories. In addition, Canopus's device-control software enables a range of sophisticated filtering and image adjustments, making it a natural choice for advanced users.

The ADS Tech DVD Xpress delivered very good quality and offered real-time capture to MPEG-2, making it a great choice for consumers converting their analog libraries to DVD. ADS Tech bundles one-step analog-to-DVD conversion software and a standard DVD authoring program with the unit, so it's a complete package. This unit tended to fade the videos slightly during capture, a problem that you can fix with the unit's brightness and contrast adjustments before you begin. Also, it's a one-way device, with analog inputs but no outputs, so you can't write video back to tape after editing.

The JVC SR-MV40U produced very good-quality video that was almost indistinguishable from that of the ADS unit; the JVC deck, however, doesn't provide software brightness and contrast adjustments. Still, the SR-MV40U converted multiple tapes to DVD without error, all in real time, with only a short finalization routine necessary to play the DVDs on a normal player.

While you can combine multiple tapes onto a single disc, with each appearing as a separate button on a primitive menu, the unit inserts chapter points at five-minute intervals in the finished movies. This provides a convenient mechanism to scan through the videos, but you can't create custom links to specific locations in the video as you can with MyDVD.

The SR-MV40U served as a high-quality source deck for our other capture trials, with its internal time base corrector reducing the jitter on several older VHS tapes. The unit produced good-quality VHS tapes when converting DVDs to analog tape. This range of capabilities makes the SR-MV40U an attractive alternative for those who'd rather use an appliance than their computers to convert tapes to DVD.

The lesson from our tests seemed clear: While you can eke out small quality improvements with different devices, there is no magic bullet for obtaining dramatically better results.

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